"As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of the opportunity provided to serve self-interest when Al Gore created the internet; and we should also thank Mark Zuckerburg and Jack Dorsey for creating Facebook and Twitter out of the kindness of their big hearts and not the thinness of their small wallets."

-Ben Franklin, Autobiography (1742)

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Founders look to Google+ to save the Revolutionary War

When members of the Second Continental Congress found out that Mark Zuckerberg was tracking and selling their Facebook account information to the King of England, they knew a change must be made in order to protect Revolutionary War secrets. Although the Second Continental Congress had made sure to place King George III on limited profile, they knew something was up when two hours after creating a secret event for “The Boston Tea Partay”, George III changed his status to “Intolerable Act #1, Boston ‘bout to get teabagged.”

The next day Peyton Randolph, president of the Second Continental Congress, called an emergency meeting to discuss England’s infiltration of their Facebook account. Benjamin Franklin suggested they procure small birds to follow each Congressman around and communicate important messages via tweets. Thomas Jefferson immediately shot down the idea, pointing out that it would be too easy for the birds to be followed by undercover birds from England. There was also the danger of a bird retweeting a top secret message to the entire tweeting community.

Later that day Adams brought in a new copy of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense pamphlet, delegate Jefferson stood up and shouted “I approve of this!,” and instantly the original Google+ feature was created.